


Safe In Your Arms

by Nabielka



Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: F/F, Hair Braiding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Darling finds herself in need of some help.





	Safe In Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squishy_TRex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squishy_TRex/gifts).



To her credit, the girl only startled a little when Monica slid into her lap.

She would have preferred to have started shooting, once things had begun to go wrong. When a job failed to this extent, it was her unfailing response to take aim. But under normal circumstances she would have had Buddy at her side, as he had been since they had first embarked on this life, always by each other’s sides. Now, not knowing where he was, she could not bring herself to endanger him thus, not when the risk to her did not seem immediate. 

So there was nothing for it but to lie low for a time, to wait for the cops to chase after Baby like turtles in pursuit of a cheetah, and then to escape. But in the meantime they might search the area, looking for a single woman of Monica’s description, wearing Monica’s coat. 

There was little she could do for that now, but she leaned towards Debora. She had hoops like Darling did, though hers were hollow inside. A lock of her hair had wound itself through one.

Monica reached out and flicked it, once, twice, so that the hair dislodged, and the girl twitched beneath her. It truly was a shame that Monica hadn’t the time to waste. She said, her mouth against her ear, “Give me your coat.” 

Debora blinked at her. She did not smile. But her mouth, a little pursed now, did not open in the argument Darling usually faced when her demands were not backed up with heat, or, irritatingly, Jason’s presence by her side. For heaven’s sake, some fucker had robbed her once, making sure to touch her as her up as much as convenient as he did so, and that had been long after she’d first gotten into this business. 

Perhaps she had guessed the truth of Baby’s employment at the diner, or perhaps she merely saw something now in Monica’s face that spoke of desperation. Besides, this was not like the sort of place Monica had danced in once, where a girl might be tugged down onto any lap, and anyway, Debora did not look like that kind of girl. She shrugged off her coat and holding it in one hand, looked to Monica expectantly.

Darling looked back at her, barely raising a brow. She herself still had her coat on, but who was she now, to sit in someone’s lap and still be expected to do everything for herself? 

Jason would have touched her already. Jason would have wound the belt of her jacket around his hand and tugged her closer. Debora’s hands on her were slower and she unwound the knot with as much care as though it were some terribly tangled thing and not loosely tied. 

Monica had only the shirt on underneath. Buttoning it down that morning, she had not thought the fabric unusually thin, but each brush of Debora’s hands felt like it burned through to her skin. It being unwound, she dealt with the sleeves herself, and resting it on the table, applied herself to the pockets: lipstick, two plaster, a bunch of things she didn’t need, some hair bands. On the last she looked down with distaste, but the job had not been clean, and while for now she could do little for the shade, she could not afford to leave it loose. 

It was a shame. She had worn her hair up when they had gone to pick up the ammo, but even that was little disguise. Plaits seemed safer. Monica hated plaits, hated what they did to the look of her face, but her clients had liked them, once upon a time.

She reached for Debora’s coat to transfer her effects, letting out a disgusted sound at the limited capacity of the pockets, and swung it around her shoulders. It was not the type of coat Darling would have picked out for herself: too casual, for one, and with something cutesy over left chest pocket. But the sheepskin inside still carried the warmth of Debora’s body with it, and the whiff of her perfume, and Monica felt warm in it.

There was no time for that. She slipped one hairband around her wrist, then reached behind to the back of her head to separate out her hair. But she had barely separated out that half of hair into three for plaiting when she startled at the touch of hands against her own.

They were a little cold, for Monica’s coat was still lying on the table, and Debora was only in short-sleeves, with the nails clipped short. But they were soft hands, and gentle too when they pushed Monica’s aside and reached for her hair. 

Monica turned obligingly, and felt those same hands brush through her hair as though a makeshift comb, then steadily apply themselves to their task. 

She said nothing. It was Debora’s voice that broke through then. “I used to do my mother’s hair like this, you know.” They were very close, but there was a far-off quality to her voice, something in her tone that was beyond Monica somehow. “After she got ill.” 

Monica’s own mother had been buried in the ground when Monica was still in high school. She did not devote her much time now, except for around her deathdate, if she didn’t happen to be high at the time. She had tied Monica’s hair with ribbons as a child, bright and always too tight.

As Debora tied up the plait, her fingers brushed across Monica’s neck, patting down the hair at the back of her nape. Darling was hardly virginal: there was no reason for so simple a touch from a woman she had seen a scarce two times to bring about heart palpitations. 

And yet… She could not see the cops yet. She did not know where Jason was, but this in itself did not bring her great worry, and so she found herself feeling indulgent. As Debora’s fingers tilted her head a little to the side to take care of the rest of her hair, she said, “Mine was ill too. Heart problems.”

There had been a man once, who looked her up and down, and said something about how she must have broken her heart. He had called her a whore too, but it was that comment that had made her press against Jason and talk about how real, real romantic it would be for him to make that guy disappear. Jason was real devoted; the deed was done.

Both their heads were tilted in the same direction, but Debora’s was down, looking at her hand moving through Monica’s hair. Even had it not been, she had no reason to be ever on the lookout for cops as Darling did and had for years. But for Monica, it was not a sight that boded well, and so she stilled to see them. 

They were walking up from the adjoining street, two of them, with a casual gait. Their manner had nothing in it to speak of pursuit, but surely the alert must have been raised. Bats’ body must have been found, and the tellers’ descriptions passed on to various police patrols. It might not have been a task these rookies might have expected to undertake on a standard patrol, but still they would not shy away from attempting to make an arrest.

Her head moved by instinct, only to be stopped in place by Debora’s hold on her hair, which pulled at her skull. 

“I’m almost done,” she said firmly. “Don’t move.” Her voice was calm, but in Darling’s hair, her hands were shaking. She was trying to hurry, Monica had to give her that, but it was making her careless and she cursed, undoing the last fold of the plait. 

She could not point. She said, out of the corner of her mouth, “They’re coming.”

It was not the cops she was afraid of, not exactly. To have them barge in on a robbery was one thing: hostages were some security, and in any case she was always heavily armed there. But to sit there and have them come for her, helpless now, and then to waste her life away, when it had been to not hate waking up every morning that she had gone into this business to begin with...

Debora’s breath was hot against her skin. “I’m trying! You can’t have one side plaited and the other loose.” 

But the cops had turned; they were approaching. Monica squirmed. 

“There, done,” said Debora and released her. 

Free from her hold, Monica turned. They might have been sent surveillance footage already; a woman with her back turned might not be suspicious even if she had the right shade of hair. 

It was a warm day. She was sitting on a pretty girl’s lap. Had she been the type of person to get caught up entirely in love, she might have been unable to focus on anything but dragging smiles out of Debora and admiring the way the sunlight hit her hair.

Debora’s eyes flickered to the side. They were approaching, then, and had not been turned around in their search for purpose. It was obvious too, that her time with Baby had been devoted entirely to personal pursuits: it was sloppy work to look so obviously at a cop. 

But no sooner had Darling formed that opinion than she was forced to revise it. For as the cops made their easy unsuspicious way down the road, Debora leaned in very close and kissed her.

Her mouth was soft, and warm, and it opened easily for Monica’s tongue to slide against her own. One arm came up around Monica’s shoulder, as though Debora had nothing more in mind than to pull her in and hold her close. She kissed as though it were real, and Monica, closing her eyes, let herself get caught up in it, imagined that this was just some idle moment between women who had cause to be devoted to one another. 

She saw, out of the corner of her eye, that the cops did not consider themselves to have cause to devote much time to a kissing couple, but the relief of this did not make her pull away. 


End file.
